arsey Aussie

What an arsey thread. (no homo)

gay is ok

Every American I`ve ever heard pronounces "Aussie" using an "s" (including me). Getting offended by that is ignorant. It`d be the same as an American being offended by the pronunciation of "America" as "AmericaR", as some, if not all, Brits & "AuZZZies" do. We simply couldn`t care less. Different folks, different strokes, different accents, different blokes. G`dai!

>><<Yes, in American we pronounce it [Asi], but it can't be confused with "arsey" because "arsey" has an "r" in it.>>

And because "arsey" isn't a word we would ever say ... or one I've ever seen before.... <<

Seconded. And even if it were, "Aussie" and "arsey" would not sound alike at all, the former being (my apologies) ["Qsi:] and the latter being ["VRsi:] here. To be honest, I associate "Ozzy" with [z] with Ozzy Osbourne more than anything else, and then it is pronounced ["a:zi:] here, with a different vowel than the usual pronunciation of "Aussie" here as well.

I say Aussie like Oh-zee and I am being from Sweden mostly but my new friend who is Amsterdam say more like oshy. I meet a Aussie in London and he say he like the way I say it.

For me, "Aussie" (pronounced with "s") couldn't sound like "arsey" even without the "r", since it is pronounced "aw-see", not "ah-see". "Ozzy" would imply the pronunciation "ah-zee" -- don't you want "aw-zee"? It's "Australia" after all not "Ostralia".

Alright but as long as we get to respell and pronounce (with "s") Missouri : "M'-Soory" not "Mizouri". And Missourian would have to be "M'-Soorian".

this is such a hilarous debate just wonderin y do americans get offended about bein called yanks? i mean i call u guys that all the time and even to american tourists comin to australia and they dont get offended!!! and poms well thats just what we call the british and most of em dont mind! And call me a aussie, skippy anytin and i dont care i mean it isnt really and insult we call ourselves aussie just u gotta pronounce it how australians say it or ur sayin it rong

>> For me, "Aussie" (pronounced with "s") couldn't sound like "arsey" even without the "r", since it is pronounced "aw-see", not "ah-see". "Ozzy" would imply the pronunciation "ah-zee" -- don't you want "aw-zee"? It's "Australia" after all not "Ostralia". <<

But in Western North American English, there is no "ah" or "aw" sound. Words such as bother, father, cot, caught, don, and dawn, all have the same vowel sound, which is either what you would call "ah" or "aw", or something in between. Thus when we read "ah", we could very well pronounce it as "aw". Same for "aw". We pronounce and even hear those two vowels as the *exact* same vowel.

So Ozzy, and Awzzy sound and are pronounced the same way. "Ostralia" is just as good transcription as "Australia". Most would read those both as Ahstralia and Ahzzy.

"Yank" doesn't bother us, since we don't use it ourselves. The insult is sort of lost on us -- even if we know you're trying to insult us with it, it lacks any real visceral punch.